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The holidays are stressful enough with all the shopping and decorating and obligations. If you’re partnered off, you at least have someone to share the seasonal load with and you also get to skip the absolute worst Christmas stressor of all: your family haranguing you about being single!
Okay, maybe there are worse things about the holiday season. Rampant greed and poverty and seasonal affective disorder are definitely up there. But production companies don’t want to make TV movies about a working woman overcoming a December depression after finding the perfect therapist. No, they want to focus on pairing off single people into Christmas couples by any means necessary. That’s lead to a whole sub-genre of films with a surprisingly specific through line: movies where single people desperately need a fiancee for Christmas.
Note that these quickie “romantic” arrangements are never done for a green card, even if Green Card Christmas is definitely a movie you could see on Hallmark. The lies are always done to impress an overbearing pair of parents (or in a few cases a snooty superior). This leads to Christmas romcoms with a whole lot of subterfuge and, in some cases, foul play and a whole lot of HR violations. If you like your holiday cheer with a side of lies, here are 9 Christmas movies that feature two people playing at being in love (before actually falling in love, of course).
'While You Were Sleeping'
Year: 1995
Fake Couple: Sandra Bullock and Peter Gallagher
Reason For Lying: Lucy was at the right place at the right time to get in good with the total stranger she was crushing on (Peter). After she saves him from getting run over by an L train, everyone at the hospital mistakes her for his fiancée–and she just goes along with it while her “fiancé” is in a coma.
Also Starring This Sitcom Actor: Peter Boyle, Everybody Loves Raymond
'Borrowed Hearts'
Year: 1997
Fake Couple: Roma Downey and Eric McCormack
Reason For Lying: Sam’s a factory-owner that needs a family in order to impress a potential client, so he pays factory-worker Kathleen a ton of money to pose as his wife. Ethics really go out the window in these movies when a deal is close to happening!
Also Starring This Sitcom Actor: Pre-Will & Grace Eric McCormack is more than enough sitcom star power for this movie.
'Holiday in Handcuffs'
Year: 2007
Fake Couple: Melissa Joan Hart and Mario Lopez
Reason For Lying: After getting fired and dumped right before Christmas, Trudie has a total nervous breakdown that leads to her kidnapping a diner patron named David at gunpoint (the gun is a few hundred years old, which makes it both less and more crazy). All Trudie wants is for her overbearing parents to approve of her, and bringing home an architect might do the trick!
Also Starring This Sitcom Actor: June Lockhart, Lassie
'Holiday Engagement'
Year: 2011
Fake Couple: Bonnie Somerville and Jordan Bridges
Reason For Lying: Hillary is so humiliated after getting dumped that she hires an actor named David to play the part of her fiancé during a long holiday weekend.
Also Starring This Sitcom Actor: Shelley Long, Cheers
Stream Holiday Engagement in Hulu
'Hitched for the Holidays'
Year: 2012
Fake Couple: Emily Hampshire and Joey Lawrence
Reason For Lying: Rob and Julie are so sick of dealing with pressure to get married that they each answer what’s basically a Craigslist ad seeking someone to pose as a fiancé. The Craigslist personals section has never been used for something so wholesome yet so deceitful.
Also Starring This Sitcom Actor: Marilu Henner, Taxi
'Snow Bride'
Year: 2013
Fake Couple: Katrina Law and Jordan Belfi
Reason For Lying: Greta is a scoop-hungry tabloid reporter who sneaks into a ski resort in order to get all the romantic and political gossip about the Tannenhills, a.k.a. the “west coast Kennedys.” But her covert mission is ruined when Ben Tannenhill catches her roaming around in a wedding dress (I don’t know)–so he poses as her boyrfriend so his family won’t kick her out! So the Tannenhills think she’s Ben’s girlfriend and Ben thinks she’s a runaway bride. The layers, y’all.
Also Starring This Sitcom Actor: Patricia Richardson, Home Improvement
'Marry Me for Christmas'
Year: 2013
Fake Couple: Malinda Williams and Brad James
Reason For Lying: Marci’s a big-shot executive that’s no match for her family’s constant nosiness about her love life, so her assistant Adam surely breaks all sorts of HR rules by becoming her fake fiancé for Christmas.
Also Starring This Sitcom Actor: Jason Weaver, Smart Guy; Carl Anthony Payne II, Martin
'Love the Coopers'
Year: 2015
Fake Couple: Olivia Wilde and Jake Lacy
Reason For Lying: Eleanor is sick and tired of her parents judging her for not having a boyfriend, so she picks up a random soldier named Joe from the airport bar and drops him in the middle of a hectic Cooper Christmas.
Also Starring This Sitcom Actor: John Goodman, Roseanne; Ed Helms, The Office
'A December Bride'
Year: 2016
Fake Couple: Jessica Lowndes and Daniel Lissing
Reason For Lying: Seth ruined Layla’s engagement by introducing her ex-fiancé to the woman he’s now marrying (my brain hurts). Now Seth’s making it up to Layla by posing as her new fiancé at her ex-fiancé’s wedding!
